


Spider to the Fly

by Sockmonk



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Abuse, Abusive Relationship, Angst, Character Death, Death, F/M, Implied or Off-stage Rape/Non-con, Oneshot, Rape
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-07
Updated: 2013-02-07
Packaged: 2017-11-28 13:11:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/674760
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sockmonk/pseuds/Sockmonk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Angst about Regina's abuse of Graham. Oneshot.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Spider to the Fly

She is like a god to him, but in all the wrong ways. She can destroy things with a point of her finger, creating a tornado that leaves a path of misery in her wake without a care. And like a god, she is everywhere, inescapable, a core part of the universe itself. He could run, sure, but she has possession of his heart, and knowing her sadistic ways, she wouldn’t bless him with a quick death. Besides, he’s gotten to the point where he no longer wishes to escape - or rather, that he has pushed it out of his mind, knowing it’s not a possibility. He has accepted his fate with a learned helplessness, knowing that she possesses power and magic far greater than he could ever fathom, and he has long since stopped caring, stopped feeling. 

Sometimes he remembers the comfort of the woods with a dreamy, far away feeling, just him and the wolves alone, everything wild and untamed, away from people, away from her. Like everything else, it evokes little emotion from him, more like a dream or far away fantasy than a reality. What he lives every day is far removed from those days, stuck inside these castle walls. It feels like forever since he’s had the scent of pine in his nostrils, a bow in his hand, racing through the trees in pursuit of a stag, breathing the warm, fresh air into his lungs, his wolves running alongside him in perfect synchronicity, completely free. Those things were an entire world apart from his current existence, always trapped inside these cold grey walls, breathing in the stale air, trapped with a person who treated him more like a puppet for her own devices than a real person. 

In the early days, he used to try and fight her. Now, though, if she asks ‘jump’ he says ‘how high’. He knows it doesn’t matter. Going along with whatever she wants, that’s better than the alternative of her squeezing his heart but never crushing it, no, never allowing him the luxury of death.

Even once he’s in Storybrooke it’s no different. Sure, she can’t force him into things with magic, but she can with threats. She lays on top of him like a spider hovering over a fly caught in her web, whispering to him with an angry sort of calm about how she can make him lose his job, his reputation, his life otherwise, just this thing, just this one thing, that’s all she asks, God, after all she’s done for him, she tells him a worthless creature like him would never get such a powerful position in the community without her. So he says, okay. Whatever you want I’ll do. It’s just easier, that way. He does it so many times that he doesn’t even think about it any more. Sure, he doesn’t feel anything, but feeling like a hollowed out shell is better than feeling miserable. He has no good emotions towards her, sure, but he doesn’t have any bad emotions either. She just is. A constant presence.

When he finally realizes what she’s been doing to him, what the truth is, it makes him sick to his stomach. He’s sickened by the very sight of her, this woman who had taken his heart, his soul, his entire _life_ from him. He tells her he’s leaving her, for himself, for his own damn sanity, and he thinks he’s gotten away from her and her constant abuse of him, of his heart, of his entire body. 

But that’s never true, is it? You can’t get away from a god, no matter how hard you try. Nothing escapes her icy gaze. It’s true what they say, that she has eyes everywhere. He collapses there in the police station, and in those last moments he remembers everything, even the parts he was trying desperately to forget. He thinks of how fitting it is, that only when he’s gotten away from her will she offer him the solitude of death, no matter how many times he begged her before, back when he was a huntsman and she was a queen. To her, his heart is a ripe apple, and she’s more than willing to take a bite. 

In those last moments, he dreams of running free and carelessly through the trees, and the wolf from his dreams treads alongside him, keeping pace with him, and he knows this is how things have always been and always will be.

For the first time since he’s been under her twisted spell, he feels free at last.


End file.
